Hello Darkness, my old friend

When Clint wakes up, he’s alone, as usual. Phil is an early riser both by nature and necessity: he likes the slow hours of early mornings, and he’s found out he can get most work done when he doesn’t have to worry about meetings or colleagues popping in. Clint, on the other hand, sleeps in every chance he gets.

Clint raises his hands above his head and stretches like a cat, wincing at the popping joints in his back. He probably should schedule an appointment to one of SHIELD’s osteopaths before his back and shoulders cramp so hard he can’t move them. Scratching his stomach, he goes over his schedule for today. Practice, training with Nat and Wanda, and testing the new compound with Tony’s arrowheads, hopefully with fewer explosions than the last time. If everything goes as planned, he could even squeeze in a dinner with Phil. They’d both benefit from some HC romancing.

Phil’s been extremely busy with his Bus team lately. He’s been pushing them to work on their team cohesion and trust issues, and today’s supposed to be filled with yet another weird team bonding exercise which he deemed important. Clint’s pretty sure Mel is as excited about it as a week old sock. 

Clint takes a quick shower skipping his routine morning jerk off session in case Phil is in the mood later. He brushes his teeth and pads into the kitchen without bothering to put on his clothes. And stops.

Phil is standing by the window, staring at something on the horizon. He’s in his suit as if he was ready to go, but as Clint walks slowly closer, he sees there’s no steam rising from the coffee mug in his hand, and there’s a familiar blank expression on his face.

Oh. Damn.

Clint closes his eyes for a moment, turns on his heel, and goes to put some clothes on. It’s going to be a long day.

The first time Clint saw it happen, he was a new recruit at SHIELD, barely integrated into the system. He used to spend his time alone and preferably in the vents, learning everything he could about the secretive alphabet company he had been half-forced to join. For reasons he didn’t want to scrutinize closer, he had fallen asleep above Coulson’s then-empty office and jerked awake when Coulson entered and closed the door with a definite click. Clint settled down to spy on the unflappable man who had been assigned as his handler, eager to pick up anything personal behind the bland Agent Coulson mask.

In the past weeks, Clint had seen Coulson sharp, efficient, and, at times, almost terrifying in his calmness. He had seen Coulson tired, absentminded, and preoccupied, but it didn’t take Clint long to realize that, this time, something else was going on. Coulson was somehow duller in a way Clint couldn’t grasp. He walked to his desk, sat down, and just — stopped. 

Clint frowned. Coulson didn’t seem injured and since it was early afternoon on an uneventful day, there was no reason for the Agent to look so… empty.

Coulson sat unmoving and staring for a long time, and even though Clint felt like he was intruding, he didn’t want to leave Coulson alone. Not that the man even knew he was being watched. He hoped. 

After what seemed like at least an hour, something in Coulson sagged. Slowly, like he was aching all over, he went to unlock his door and continued his day, going through the motions of writing reports and planning missions. But the odd emptiness prevailed, manifesting every time when Coulson had a moment alone and he thought no-one was watching.

But Clint was watching, and what he saw made him deeply uncomfortable.

Running a to do -list in his head, Clint chugs down a glass of OJ and a couple of cold sausages. He makes some calls to remove or reschedule their appointments to clear their calendars and inform their teams of what’s going on. A simple ’Sorry, need to cancel, Phil needs me,’  is sufficient for Nat and Tony who know enough to understand, but the Bus team poses a challenge. Even though they mostly treat Phil like an annoying dad, Clint doesn’t know them well enough to know if they can be trusted. They’ve gone through a lot, but since he doesn’t have Phil’s explicit permission, he’s reluctant to tell them the real reason why their team leader is MIA. In the end, he decides to message Mel who’d have the questionable joy to wrangle the rest of the team.

On his way into the bedroom, Clint snatches a couple of bananas and a bottle of Gatorade from the kitchen. Phil isn’t fond of the drink, but if this episode is a bad one, Clint wants to make sure Phil’s blood sugar levels don’t go too low. Phil’s version of breakfast is two giant mugs of strong coffee, and Clint is pretty sure he didn’t make it even to the first one. He tosses the food on the night stand, straightens the sheets, and airs the bedroom. When he’s done, he makes sure his phone is silent with the vibe off and puts it beside the bananas. Then he goes back into the kitchen where Phil is still standing, completely oblivious to what’s going on around him. 

Clint turns the coffee maker off, puts the milk back into the fridge, and finally steps beside Phil. Gently, he takes Phil’s phone from his pocket and  the cold coffee from his hands. He pours the coffee out and leaves the rinsed mug in the sink and the turned-off phone on the counter. Then he pads back to Phil, and carefully places his hands on Phil’s shoulders, slides them down his arms a couple of times, and finally slips his arms around Phil’s midriff to hug him from behind the way Phil loves. He leans his chin on Phil’s shoulder and regulates his breathing into slow, deep breaths.

Phil gives no sign he even notices Clint is there.

As years went by, Clint learned to know and trust Coulson. They slowly morphed from Barton and Coulson to Clint and Phil, from professional briefings to long conversations and the hushed intimacy of skin on skin. Clint learned to let Phil know why men of certain looks made him twitch and Phil — Phil lowered his mental armor around him.

As a hindsight, Clint was sure he had always been aware of the lingering aura of depression around Phil. It didn’t affect his work or his performance on the field, but it was there, like a well-worn cloak on his shoulders. Usually, Phil was so accustomed to it he barely noticed it, but at times it was more prominent.

Honestly, Clint was surprised no-one else saw it.

The first time Clint saw Phil go away while he was there, he said nothing. Instead, he gently took Phil’s laptop and shut it down. He left Phil on the couch, staring at the opposite wall with his eyes vacant, and went to make dinner. He figured that the sounds would help draw Phil back from wherever he had gone, reminding that Clint was there, waiting for him. It took hours, but Phil did come back, albeit mentally more exhausted than Clint had seen him so far. They ate in silence and then Clint took Phil to shower, washed him from head to toe, and took him to bed. Phil had fallen asleep before Clint had even made it to spoon him.

Clint took it as a sign of massive trust, the fact that Phil allowed himself to be so vulnerable with him. He never asked what triggered his episodes because he figured that Phil would tell him in his own time — if he wanted. 

After some time, when his legs start to ache, Clint gently turns Phil around and leads him towards the bedroom. He knows from experience that if he doesn’t interfere, Phil would stand still for hours and end up painfully stiff with cramped muscles, and Clint doesn’t want that.

Phil follows his lead like a sleepwalker. He stumbles a bit on the doorstep, but Clint steadies him with ease. With easiness born from years of practice, he undresses Phil and changes him into his favorite pajamas. Then he gently pushes Phil to lie down, climbs after him, and arranges them so that he’s holding Phil against his chest, carding his fingers through Phil’s hair. Gradually, Phil relaxes and falls asleep in Clint’s arms.

Clint turns the TV on mute and scrolls to some Home Makeover channel to keep himself occupied while Phil is somewhere else.

Years later, after the whole Loki business and Phil dying (and then nearly dying several times in a row), things were different for a long time. They were both hanging in the threads of their sanity by the skins of their teeth, physically, mentally, and emotionally fragile. As Phil went through physical and behavioral therapists, Clint burned through a league of psychiatrists with his own issues. They simply didn’t have time for anything else.

Clint was no fool, though. Phil had lived with his depression for over 30 years, and getting skewered by a megalomaniac Norse god didn’t cure it. When things were settled, his episodes would resurface. 

And they did.

Even though Clint could usually recognize the oncoming episode by a certain look in Phil’s eyes and how his posture was slightly off, he still worried. He never knew how bad the episode would be: if Phil could just wait it out with Clint hovering in the periphery of his vision or if it was the bad, incapacitating kind that would fuck up their schedules for days.

One day, after a mild episode, Fury came to interrupt his target practicing and said, gruffly, ”You should know… these are not your fault, Clint.”

”I know,” Clint said, frowning at his target. He’d tried to shoot nine arrows at once, but two were out of formation. He’d need to work on that.

Fury didn’t seem to hear him. ”Phil has had these for as long as I can remember. They usually don’t last long, but they can be scary. I just thought you should know.”

Clint raised his brows and said, pointedly, ”I said, I know. We’ve been together for years, and you were Phil’s best man. In our wedding. Remember?”

Fury blinked and gave him a slightly startled look. Clint sighed. ”The first time I saw one of his episodes, I’d been here, like, two weeks. Trust me, I know.”

He checked his bow string, arranged the arrows in his hand, and shot, narrowing his eyes as he observed the slightly altered flight trajectories. All on the formation. Good.

Fury waited while he collected his arrows and made notes on the ridiculously complicated test form Tony had provided with the new arrowheads before he cleared his throat and asked, ”Has he told you why he gets them?”

Clint straightened himself and turned to give Fury an assessing look. ”Yes,” he said.

Fury tried to stare him down, but when it became obvious Clint wasn’t going to offer more information, he huffed and left with a dramatic flare of his leather jacket. Clint rolled his eyes to his theatrics. Did Nick really think he’d tattle Phil’s secrets? It would take a lot more than a one-eyed Director to cow him.

At some point, Clint falls asleep and stirs when Phil shifts. ”Hi,” he says softly, pushing himself — and by proxy, Phil too — to sit up.

Phil blinks owlishly and takes a look around. ”That bad, huh?” he mutters.

Clint doesn’t say anything, just kisses Phil on top of his head. After one memorable disaster, he’s learned not to question Phil’s comments after an episode. His husband is formidable in many ways, but after he dissociates, Phil is brittle. So, Clint reaches out to grab a banana, peels it open, and gives to Phil who huffs but takes the fruit. He eats slowly, pausing at times to frown at the wrinkles on the sheets, not yet fully here. Clint waits until Phil has eaten the banana and gives him the Gatorade next, ignoring the eye roll.

As Phil takes his time drinking, Clint watches how the slight tremor in his hands slowly dissipates. Not for the first time, he wonders how strange the human mind is: how easily it tricks someone like Phil to step out of his own mind and watch his life like an outsider, wondering who he is and what he’s doing. Or, like Phil had once tried to explain, ’I’m looking back at myself, questioning all my life choices and wondering if I know that man at all. I look at all the lost opportunities, all the turns I took, all the decisions I made, and dread what the sum of my parts is. I look at myself and wonder who I am.’ 

Clint hadn’t known what to say to that. He’s always been more of a man of actions than words, and he knew better than offer platitudes like ’I know who you are,’ or ’You have nothing to worry about.’ 

He knows better than that.

Instead, he stays near, lets Phil know he’s there for him whatever decision he makes. 

When Phil is finished, he hands Clint the empty bottle, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.

”Would you join me in the shower?” he asks.

And Clint says, ”Always.”